When the Silver King Mine was discovered on April 6, 1881, there was no town at Calico. The colorful mountain overlooking Wall Street Canyon was already known by name, but only a handful of prospectors occupied the district.
Even by Independence Day, July 4, 1881, the future townsite contained no buildings. Wall Street Canyon had only a single cabin, with just two known residents in the district. Within days, Sam James began developing the Silver King Mine. After Sheriff John C. King leased the property and assays confirmed exceptionally rich ore worth $100 to $2,000 per ton, word spread rapidly across Southern California.
By late summer, prospectors arrived almost daily. One newspaper reported that claim notices and monuments covered nearly every promising outcrop. Prospecting parties were spreading in every direction across the surrounding mountains, limited only by the amount of water they could carry.
A business district soon appeared beneath the mines on a narrow mesa below Wall Street Canyon. The first establishments included three stores, a hay yard, and an assay office. Ten miners worked the Silver King Mine for $4 per day. Town lots were already being sold. Mrs. Hieronymous Hartman, the first woman to settle permanently in the camp, opened a boarding house. It quickly became the community’s social center. As one correspondent humorously observed, “Wall Street booming. No banks yet.”
Despite several promising discoveries during the autumn and winter of 1881, Calico remained a rough mining camp waiting for investment capital. Residents joked they were “waiting like Micawber for something to turn up.” Entertainment was scarce. The appearance of a mountain lion became a major event, prompting an organized hunt. As Christmas approached, Mrs. Hartman organized a holiday dinner. The menu was expected to consist mainly of beans and bacon because neither turkeys nor chickens were available.
Communication with the outside world remained unreliable. Mail arrived only sporadically, carried by stage from San Bernardino. Reflecting ongoing isolation, stage driver Aaron Harrison even offered to carry letters personally on his weekly trips. Local residents referred to San Bernardino and Los Angeles simply as “the inside,” emphasizing how isolated Calico remained.
Winter brought severe storms. High winds and heavy snowfall blocked roads across the desert, but mining continued. The Burning Moscow Mine employed seven or eight men. New buildings were under construction. The camp soon boasted a blacksmith shop, several stores, a barber’s assay office, boarding and lodging houses, and even a shooting gallery. The miners at Silver King had built themselves comfortable quarters overlooking the camp.
By early 1882, newspapers were confident that the excitement surrounding Calico would continue. Employment at the Silver King Mine increased to ten men, and the growing number of miners’ candles being shipped from San Bernardino suggested extensive underground development. Sheriff John C. King frequently visited San Bernardino carrying pockets full of rich silver specimens, while other investors proudly displayed high-grade ore from the district.
Yet Calico’s greatest challenge was isolation. The Southern Pacific Railroad pushed eastward across the Mojave Desert, but Calico still lacked a post office. Mail traveled hundreds of unnecessary miles through Rogers Station and Ivanpah before reaching the camp, even though the mail route passed only a few miles from town. Residents complained that letters, “worn out traveling back and forth in sight of camp,” often arrived a month late.
Transportation costs also slowed development. Freight from San Bernardino costs $25 per ton. The desert offered little timber, little game, almost no farmland, and scarce fuel. Creosote bushes and Mojave River cottonwoods provided only limited firewood. The river itself ran so low that one observer joked it produced only “steam.” Veteran miner S. D. Blade remarked bluntly that little could survive on the plains without hauling in supplies—”except land turtles, lizards, or an occasional jackrabbit.”
Despite these hardships, Calico continued to grow. The combination of extraordinarily rich silver ore and determined miners overcame the obstacles of distance, weather, and supply shortages, laying the foundation for what would become California’s greatest silver-mining town. Thus, Calico’s persistence amid adversity marked the beginning of its remarkable story.